


time wounds all the heals

by bugmadoo



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Ghosts, Hallucinations, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 16:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bugmadoo/pseuds/bugmadoo
Summary: Aaron disappears. Robert hallucinates him.A ghost story that's not really about ghosts.





	time wounds all the heals

**Author's Note:**

> Happy halloween!! Here's the fic to Cora dingleminyard's wonderful gifset that she made for this.
> 
> Title from "I Sat by the Ocean" by Queens of the Stone Age
> 
> Slight warning for some blood but nothing explicit really. Enjoy!

_Robert._

It is a dream. It must be a dream.

_Wake up, Robert._

He doesn’t want to wake up.

He feels the cold floor underneath him, his back against the door, hard and unyielding. He opens his eyes and sees the overturned chair in front of him, a smashed bottle next to him. Both cruel reminders of what’s happened just two little days ago. Both cruel reminders that Aaron was gone so it couldn’t be his voice Robert was hearing.

The muscles of his body feel frozen when he tries to get up, cold and uncooperative, and it feels like forever until he’s back on his feet. He’s not proud of the destruction he caused in their home last night after the police came by and told him there were no updates on Aaron’s case yet again. Every bit of this house, their home, no matter how small or big, was a reminder. Robert couldn’t bare the sight of it.

For a moment he thinks about cleaning it up but dismisses it, walks into the kitchen instead, grabs a glass before opening the alcohol cabinet and grabs the first thing he sees. He scoffs when he sees it’s whiskey.

_Don’t start drinking, Robert._

Robert’s head whips around, the voice so clear that Aaron should be standing right next to him but all he sees is the kitchen counter. He shakes his head.

He must be imagining things.

 

+++

 

Boom boom.

He hears it echoing around his head, ricocheting inside his skull, growing louder and louder instead of being absorbed and dying.

Boom boom boom.

Robert’s restless sleep turns darker, louder, thicker. Nightmare in the back of his head.

He wakes up gradually. He feels his heart beating faster, starts feeling his tense muscles, cold skin. He thinks he feels a touch of tender fingers on his cheeks that can only come from one person. He snaps his eyes open so fast that it takes a second for Robert’s eyes to focus but … he’s here. He’s back. Aaron. Undoubtedly Aaron. Robert feels tears prick behind his eyelids and his chest constricts.

“Aaron,” he sighs, voice trembling, and looks at the smile blooming on Aaron’s face. “Where – where were you? I was so worried, I-”

Relief seeps through him and he presses his eyes shut because he has no time to cry. He opens them again and now, all Robert can see is the coffee table right in front of him. He gets up from where he fell asleep, sitting on the floor in front of the sofa. He whips his head around left, right, left again. He gets up from the floor, almost falls over his own feet.

“Aaron?” he calls through the house. No answer.

He walks back into the kitchen, opens the door that leads into the backyard, walks into the living room, fingers running through his hair, walks up the spiral staircase upstairs and checks every room, but no matter how much he looks, Aaron isn’t here.

He feels like he’s hitting the ground after falling and falling and falling, impacting everything at once. Aaron is still missing and Robert still has no idea where he is. He screws his eyes shut and this time two tracks of hot tears escape the corners of his eyes. He hurts. The impact hurts.

Boom boom.

The noise is coming from downstairs. Robert stands frozen for a moment, undecided. Aaron must have gone somewhere, he can’t have just disappeared. Not for the first time in the last three days does Robert think _none of this makes sense_.

Boom boom.

He starts moving, walks down the stairs and hears it again, this time clearly the noise of someone banging on the front door. Robert briefly wonders how he missed it earlier but that doesn’t make the banging stop so he takes step after step towards it.

_“Robert, let me in!”_

He sighs. “What the hell do you want, Vic?”

_“I just want to check how you are, you idiot.”_

“I’m fine. Now go away.”

Boom boom. _“Robert Sugden, I’m not going anywhere until you’ve opened this door and I’ve seen it for myself!”_

Anger suddenly takes over him, a cold hard grip around his heart. In the back of his head he knows it is ridiculous, it is, but instantly placing all the blame on Vic for Aaron disappearance is the easiest thing in the world, almost instinctive. He opens the door, Vic on the other side, her hand still raised as if she was about to knock again, a look of surprise on her face.

“Oh, there you are,” she says, her tone anxious as she studies him. “Robert, you look awful –“

“What do you want, Vic?” he cuts her off. “You saw that I’m fine, now leave me alone.”

Vic blinks, seemingly surprised by his harsh tone. “Well … yes but have you seen yourself? You really don’t look very good.”

“Get out of my house, Vic. Now.”

“Robert, I just want to help-“

“I bet you’re loving this, aren’t you?” he snarls bitterly. “You were angry at Aaron for months for helping Adam escape, you still are. This is what you wanted, right? Are you happy now?”

“What is wrong with you?” Vic says, voice raised, eyes wide from shock. “I was angry at Aaron, yes, but I wouldn’t wish this on him. Who’d you think I am?”

“I want you out of my house,” Robert repeats, his words slow and crisp. “Leave now before I-“

“I’m worried about you, I really am, I just want to help!“

“I don’t want your help! I don’t want anybody’s help! I don’t want your concern! I don’t want _anything_ from you!”

“But Robert-“

“I don’t fucking need you!” he yells. He pauses for a breath. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

Vic looks as if she’s frozen, from what exactly, Robert doesn’t know but there’s a shade to her face that makes him think maybe he’s gone too far. But he’s tired. Too tired to care. Vic is standing right there and Robert knows she doesn’t understand. She won’t.

He feels like he’s fifteen again. Alone.

“Please, just go, Vic. Leave me alone and don’t come back.”

He slams the door shut and the noise leaves a ringing silence in its wake.

“She’s your sister, Robert. She cares about you.”

He gasps and his head shoots up. It was Aaron. He knows Aaron’s voice better than his own, it has to have been him. Robert’s eyes dart around, searching for something or nothing. Nausea suddenly flares up in him, punching into his stomach, and he bolts to the bathroom. He barely makes it before he’s dry heaving into the sink, throat burning, face sweating, breathing heavily. It stops because all things do and he opens the tap. He hunches over and cups the water, half-heartedly washing his face and trying to cool his hot cheeks. Gripping the porcelain, he glances up at the mirror hanging above it and he thinks he would have recoiled from his reflection is he didn’t feel so numb.

He looks pale and grey, his eyes bloodshot and his lips chapped. Has it really only been two days since Aaron went missing? He looks like he’d been stabbed and been left to bleed to death for days. He turns away, staring at his white knuckles.

“It will be alright,” Aaron says. “You need to eat something, Robert.”

Robert’s head snaps up again and there he is, within the frame of the mirror, his worried eyes meeting the wide stare of Robert’s own reflection. He spins around so quickly that he loses his balance and his body goes falling down, smacking against the tile floor with a harsh slap. He groans but makes no attempt to get up, searching the bathroom for anything that might indicate Aaron would be there. Once again there was nothing. It must have been a trick of the condensation.

 

+++

 

He wakes up shivering, wondering if he’s slept another day away or if it’s only been a couple of hours, then decides he doesn’t care. Time has a funny way of becoming distorted and insignificant when you’re willing it to move backwards.

Robert struggles to his feet, grunting with the effort, his bones feeling ten years older than they did just yesterday. He heads up the stairs for the bedroom. Their bedroom.

He flicks on the light and looks at the made bed. Usually Aaron’s the one who leaves it unmade and in a right mess, not seeing the point of making it every morning when you unmake it again every night anyway. Robert always scolds him for it without ever really meaning it. He almost smiles at the memory and he walks over to the bed to give into the sudden urge to mess up the bed like it was the morning after Aaron left. Before Robert made it and before he lost contact with Aaron. Before _missing_ and _possible kidnapping_ and _disappearance._

With trembling hands he untucks the corners and pulls back the blankets, shakes the pillows, unsatisfied because it doesn’t look genuine, not like it should after them spending the night in it together. After his fifth attempt Robert growls and grabs the covers, pulling them back completely and throwing them to the side, then the pillows, then the sheets. Again, the feeling of compulsion to destroy. To make a mess. Like he always does.

“I thought you’re supposed to be the one making the bed not messing it up?”

He sits up in a second and his eyes lock with Aaron’s. He is _there_. He actually is. Standing in the darkest corner of the bedroom, looking so real, so beautiful, and Robert can’t move. He refuses to look away, tries his hardest not to blink, feeling as if he could disappear again if he did.

Aaron’s mouth bends into a sad smile and he doesn’t know what it is but suddenly Robert just loses it.

“No, no, no, no,” he spits, shaking his head, his fingers gripping his hair. “Fuck, no, I can’t. I can’t-“

“Robert,” Aaron says. It’s definitely his voice. “It’s okay.”

“Okay?” Robert shouts, his hands sinking to his sides again. “How is this okay? If you’re here, if you’re a ghost that means … Aaron is –“

“I’m not a ghost, Robert. Look at me? Do I look like a ghost to you?”

Robert’s lips smack shut and he stares at him, his brain whirring without making any sense. None of this makes sense. But there Aaron is. Looking as real as ever, all colourful and solid. He’s so confused he just gapes at him for a few long seconds, trying to understand.

“You’re not Aaron,” Robert says eventually, resisting hope immediately, like an instinct. “The police … and Vic-“

“No, I’m not me. Not really.”

Robert swallows hard. “Then I have gone completely fucking mad.”

“No.” Aaron shakes his head, a sad smile on his face. “You’re not mad. A lot of people do this.”

“Do what?”

“See people they miss.”

His chest constricts with how true that is and it feels unbearable. Worse than anything else.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” he mumbles to himself and hits his head with the palm of his hand. “He’s not real. Get out of my head. Get out. I’m going mad.”

A thick silence follows and when Robert looks back to the corner, Aaron’s gone.

 

+++

 

The ache of an empty stomach wakes him this time and when he opens his eyes the bedroom is empty save for him. He half expected Aaron to be there in the same corner he was in before but he isn’t. He grabs his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans but there’s nothing. Just a few texts from before that he still hasn’t bothered to read. Maybe the message to leave him alone has finally sunken into everybody’s head.

He goes back to his home screen, looks at the picture of his family that feels like a knife in his heart, so without looking he opens something just so he doesn’t have to look at it anymore. Considering his luck he shouldn’t be surprised but it’s his photo gallery that opens and in the video folder Aaron’s face looks back at him. Robert’s thumb hovers over it, undecisive. He doesn’t know how long it takes but he clicks on it and it opens. Aaron there, in the hotel bed they went to on their honeymoon, sinking into the bed, just waking up. It’s short, but it’s Aaron at Robert’s favourite time of day.

His hands start to shake and he clicks the screen shut and throws his phone on the bed. He leans his head back, closes his eyes and wills the tears away.

When he opens them again, Aaron is back, sitting on their bed and looking at Robert full of concern. Robert barks out a short, hopeless laugh that could almost be considered a whine.

“I’ve completely lost it.”

“You’re not insane, Robert,” Aaron says in a reassuring tone. “You’re not.”

“Insane people see and hear things that aren’t there,” he replies coldly. “I am clearly doing both.”

“Robert –“

“And they also definitely talk to hallucinations like I am right now.”

Robert looks at Aaron properly then, realising just how accurate he looked. He looked like he’d just left the bed, hair free of gel, resting softly on his forehead, his black patterned jumper that Robert bought him once, his favourite black jeans.

His stomach grumbles again.

“You need to eat, Robert.”

“You’re not here. What does it matter if I eat or not?”

Aaron’s eyes dart around the room, as if looking for answers. “I’m here because your mind is telling you that you need me,” he says warmly. “As a comfort-“

“Comfort? Do I look comforted?” he involuntarily hisses. “I’ve gone mad, it’s as simple as that.”

“You’re not mad.”

“Just tell me where you are, Aaron. Tell me where you are so I can come get you. Please Aaron.”

His eyes are burning and he knows he’s begging but he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Robert, I told you, I only know what you know-“

“Please, Aaron. Please just tell me.”

Aaron’s eyes are getting glassy and he clears his throat. “I don’t know –“

“If you just tell me, I will come and get you,” he continues. “I’ll find you and I’ll save you and I’ll bring you home, please Aaron. Everything will be fine, I just need you to come home.”

Aaron is crying now and Robert can feel the tears hanging onto his own lashes.

“ _Robert_ ,” Aaron breathes. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

Robert grits his teeth and looks away. He feels desperate in a way he can’t remember being before and Robert thought he knew what desperation is.

“What would happen if I touch you?” Robert asks, eyes roaming over Aaron’s face.

Aaron chews his lip nervously. “I don’t know.”

He gets up out of the chair and sits down next to Aaron on the bed. Robert knows before he lifts his hand that it’s a decision he will regret but he reached out for Aaron anyway, stretching his arm out slowly and trying to still his shaking fingers. Carefully he places his fingertips against Aaron’s cheek. At first he feels nothing, but then … a slight pressure. It’s barely there but he focussed on it and then it felt like cold static, buzzing against his fingers until finally it turned warm and soft. His skin against Aaron’s. It felt so real, so real that he could feel the damp whisper of his tears. Robert’s breath caught in his throat.

“I can’t decide if this makes it better or worse. Being able to feel you,” Robert murmurs.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron whispers.

“Don’t be. Just be here when I wake up.”

Aaron doesn’t reply but smiles, so Robert nods, rests his head on Aaron’s lap and wills himself to fall asleep as fast as possible in case Aaron disappears again.

 

+++

 

He estimates that he’s been sitting in this position for somewhere between one and ten hours. He can’t say for sure.

His spine feels stiff and limbs are tingling with pins and needles and as he slowly raises his head, his neck cracks. Aaron is still there, waiting, looking at him with expectant eyes but a sad smile and an odd sense of nostalgia washes over him.

“Did I ever tell you about the moment I knew I was in love with you?”

Aaron smiles again but this time it’s warmer. It looks better on him, Robert thinks.

“No, you didn’t.”

A small smile starts spreading on his lips even though Robert thought he didn’t have the energy. “It was …” He stops himself and starts again. “Looking back, I think I loved you from the beginning. But the moment I knew for sure was … remember when Chrissie, Lachlan and Lawrence went away for a week? We spent the whole week at Home Farm.”

Aaron grins at him. “I do remember.”

“I know I told you before that-“

“Robert, I get it, you don’t-“

“I want to though. I did love you before then. I just hadn’t realised it. But that week … that week I knew I’d always want you, want to be with you.”

Aaron’s face softens but he doesn’t respond. In the silence Robert chest turns sour again.

“But I never properly told you. I should have, I really should have. Why did I … I never told you about any of this even though you deserved to hear it.”

“Robert, I knew-“

“How could you have known if I never said it?” Robert growls. “I know we’re good now and moved past all this but you deserved an explanation! Now I might not even get a chance-“

His voice fails him when he thinks about it.

Suddenly, Aaron moves too fast for Robert’s eyes to make sense of and he’s crouching at Robert’s side in a heartbeat.

“Robert,” Aaron says softly. “You can’t do this to yourself. It’s self-destructing. It’s … dangerous.”

The sob that rips its way out of Robert’s throat feels like a knife, slicing up the inside of his windpipe, and he chokes up another, and another, until it’s all he can do. He hasn’t cried like this in years and it all just falls out of him in messy and pathetic howls of despair, his whole body shaking and clenched. He hides his face in his hands, wills Aaron away for a moment even though he doesn’t really mean it.

“I – I don’t know what to do,” he stutters. “I just don’t-“

“Shh, it’s okay,” Aaron soothes. “Sleep, Robert.”

He nods absentmindedly, licking the tears at the corners of his mouth before he shuts his eyes, ready to face whatever demons were waiting in his dreams because they couldn’t be worse than his reality.

 

+++

 

The next time Robert wakes up again, Aaron is still there, sitting next to him on the bed, watching him, and Robert was neither surprised nor alarmed by it this time. Pulling himself together, he heads to the en suite bathroom of their bedroom and inspects himself in the mirror. The bloodshot eyes, the stubble glittering across his jawline, the damp cheeks, the dry lips, and he doesn’t really care that he barely recognises himself. He rubs his salty eyes roughly with the heels of his hands, trying to hide, disgusted at himself.

“You’ve watched me cry enough times, Robert,” Aaron says from behind him. “You don’t need to hide from me.”

Robert turns the tap and splashes water on his face. “How long are you going to stay with me?”

“I don’t know,” Aaron mumbles. “I guess… I’m here for as long as you need me.”

“I will never not _need_ you.”

The desperation in this voice runs through his bones in waves and when he looks up Aaron is in the mirror, all sympathy and concern.

Robert doesn’t know where it comes from but a sudden and intense bout of rage travels from his gut to his fist and he swings it at the mirror, the glass slicing into his knuckles before it shatters, the shards pouring into the basin like hail.

He hears a gasp from behind him. “Come on, Robert, don’t do this.”

“Already done,” Robert says looking at his fist.

“You’re bleeding,” Aaron says.

He turns slowly to face him, clenching his fist which causes the blood to spill a bit quicker. It’s still less than Robert would have expected though. “How do I know you’re not bleeding somewhere?”

Aaron frowns and bites his bottom lip and the gesture hols Robert’s attention. Aaron always chews his lips when he’s either trying not to cry or is concentrating on something. Again, Robert is fascinated by how accurate his hallucination was. Shaking his head, he moves past him and tries his hardest not to stare at him as he walks back into their bedroom. He sinks into a chair, still unable to bring himself to go near their bed. It almost reminds him of a different time. Only this time he is a lot less hopeful than he was then, Robert thinks.

There’s something dark lodged inside of his chest, Robert thinks. It used to be there all the time, something ugly, something that lead him to decisions he always regretted. Aaron had made it go away, so much so that Robert forgot it was there in the first place. But now it’s back and Robert doesn’t know if he can stop it alone. He needs Aaron back.

“Why can’t you just tell me where you are?”

Aaron looks up at him. His eyes look sad again. It makes anger roll up in him. “My answer isn’t going to change if you just ask enough times. I don’t know where I am.”

“Then what good are you?” Robert feels his cheeks go warm with anger and frustration. “What good are you if you can’t help me? I need _Aaron_ , not you. So tell me where the hell you are!”

“I can’t,” Aaron shouts back. “I can’t do anything except be here with you-“

“Then go!” Robert snaps. “Just get out of my head! Leave me alone!” He clamps his hands over his ears and clenches his eyes shut. “Get out! Get out!”

And he actually feels something like his presence evaporate but Robert opens his eyes anyway, twisting his head so he can scan the room. It’s only then that he notices how empty it is, how quiet. Sitting back down on the bed he barely stifles a sob and he picks up a blanket to wrap around himself like a cocoon.

“I didn’t mean that,” he says. “I’m sorry, Aaron. Come back. Aaron?”

He waits expectantly but nothing changes.

“Aaron please,” he breathes. “Come back.”

Nothing.

So he calls Aaron’s name for hours, begging his ghost to return, and when his throat is raw from shouting and his eyes from crying, he falls back on the bed and hammers his fist into the pillow until he is too exhausted to stay awake.

 

+++

 

_Robert._

He moans sleepily, focussing on the ticking of the clock on the wall.

_Robert, wake up._

His lids flutter and when they slowly peel open, Aaron is back, sitting on the bed beside him, wearing the same clothes he did the day he left.

“You came back.”

Aaron nods, smiling at Robert, tears slipping past his lashes. “Yes, I’m home. I missed you so much.”

“I’m sorry I shouted at you yesterday,” Robert mumbles. “I just-“

“Yesterday? What are you talking about?”

“When I told you to leave. I didn’t mean it.”

Aaron’s features scrunch up in confusion for a moment, but they quickly change to a sad expression of understanding and Aaron grabs Robert’s hand, giving it a tight squeeze. “Robert, it’s me.”

“It’s not really you though, is it?” Robert frowns. “But I just wanted to hear your voice again really –“

“No, Robert, look it’s me,” Aaron says. “It’s me, I promise –“

“Aaron? But you’re gone and they couldn’t find you-“

“But I’m back now. I managed to escape and the police found me, I promise –“

“No, you’re gone. You’re missing, nobody knows where you are.”

Aaron’s eyebrows draw together and Robert thinks there’s desperation in there. “Robert, look at me. I swear it’s me. I escaped them and the police found me. I promise -”

Robert’s heart start beating faster. “Please don’t lie to me,” he says, voice on the verge of breaking, “Please, I can’t handle it, this is –“

“Robert, I swear to you,” Aaron insists, his voice cracking slightly as he speaks. “It. Is. Me.”

Aaron takes Robert’s hand that he’s still clutching, leans closer, and brings the hand up to his chest, right above his hard. Robert spreads his fingers to touch as much of Aaron as possible, wondering if maybe … maybe this really is Aaron. The real one.

He pauses his breathing and, after what feels like an eternity, the familiar vibrations of Aaron’s very real heartbeat pounds against his palm.

Robert flings his arms around Aaron, yanking him as close as he can without crushing him, nuzzling into his shoulder, fingers digging into Aaron’s sweater, trying to sink into him as much as possible. Robert doesn’t think he’ll ever let go again. He feels tears escape him, his chest shaking with supressed sobs, and a relief is running in his veins so strong, he feels as if he finally found back inside his own body.

“God, Aaron,” he manages to get out. Aaron places a kiss against his temple.

“Are you okay?” Robert says and manages to pull himself away to give Aaron a proper once over.

“Yeah, I am,” Aaron nods and pulls Robert into a kiss, desperate and necessary, another reassurance. It doesn’t last long and before long they’re hugging again, unable to let the other go.

Robert rests his mouth against Aaron’s throat and as if to reassure him, his pulse hums against Robert’s lips. It makes a sob escape Robert anyway and Aaron kisses his temple again, coming his nails through his hair and whispering calming words in his ear. Robert tries to speak, tried to tell him that he’d missed him, that he loved him, but it all comes out in sounds rather than sentences.

“It’s okay,” Aaron says, his own voice heavy with tears. “We’re home.”

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a small drabble for Cora's gifset but became long enough for its own post (they grow up so fast). 
> 
> It's the first thing I've really written in a year so thanks for reading! Let me know if you liked it or find me on [tumblr](http://josephtate.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
